


Marked Man

by SippingPlotting



Category: Downton Abbey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SippingPlotting/pseuds/SippingPlotting
Summary: Reading Raelee's....which is superior....and thinking of what might happen after.Tagging this@Raelee   and@Knullabulla





	Marked Man

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Luckiest Bloke](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936834) by [raelee514](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raelee514/pseuds/raelee514). 



-  
-  
-  
Jimmy Kent woke up wearing a carmine pink kimono and very little (actually nothing) else.  
"Wha'?" he groaned slightly, trying to lick dry lips.  
His mouth tasted like the bottom of an ash tray and his head pounded in rhythm with his heart.  
"Wha'th' bloddy hell?" he muttered and tried to sit, gathering the silky folds of the kimono about his body.

He looked down at the lapels of the thing, glittery and fringed.  
Shiny. And Jimmy closed his eyes slowly as he tried with every bit of his brain to remember what he'd drank that could make him feel this Hurt.

 

The tattoo. It had started with the tattoo a week ago.  
He'd been out drinking and ended up with some bully boys who'd teased him that Real Men have tattoos.  
Hula Girls. Anchors. The Names of Sweethearts.  
Things got a bit fuzzy after that, but Jimmy woke up at the Crawley's London house with the letter "T" marking him as 'claimed.' (Surely as the morning light, though fortunately no one seemed to recognize the significance of the act.)  
And he'd been told by Carson, most severely, that he was restricted from going out on the City again as punishment.

Until Barrow found a way around the old man's sanctions. As Thomas usually did.

\---

"Whatever was my friend thinking?" Barrow had thrown the tickets down in disgust on the table Friday morning. "The opera. Phht."  
He'd smirked as though such 'cultural events' were beneath him. 

"If you knew anything at all about the Larger World, you'd realize that the opera is one of the highest forms of entertainment." Carson, as always, took it upon himself to smack Barrow down. "Lord and Lady Grantham saw just that performance a week ago, and declared it quite the thing."  
"Really?" Barrow oggled. "Well, perhaps, but it's not for the likes of me. Maybe you'd like them, then?"  
And as the butler dithered, not wanting to take a single thing from Thomas,  
the footman rose and made to move off. 

"If you don't, just chuck them. But if you do, hopefully you & Mrs. Hughes could enjoy the show."

\---

Of course that left the house unattended Friday night until late, with Carson assuming they'd be in bed when he returned.  
Barrow had a way in, so they just had to go out, have their fun, and come back before dawn.

Dawn.  
Jimmy groaned as he looked toward the window and light hit his eyes.  
He pulled the carmine pink, silky THING around him, using the glittery fringed matching belt to cinch it tight.  
They'd gone to the Lido first. That much he remembered.  
Some sort of cabaret show, drinks at the bar, a card game in the back. 

 

He'd won.  
Jimmy had the distinct recollection of winning the card game.  
Searching the pockets of the kimono, though, there wasn't any money to be found.  
No, when he'd won he'd been wearing pants.  
Jimmy began to flush a carmine pink color himself as he realized he must've lost his pants somewhere in the west end. (Fortunately they weren't his best pants, but it was embarrassing all the same.)

 

After the Lido, then what?  
"I remember a little club from before the war," Thomas had said, laughing lightly. "The Cave of the Golden Calf."  
He'd said it with such a smirk, the words rolling off his tongue as though they tasted of honey...memories sweet.  
"So le's go to this Golden Pub Calf.....this Golden Calf Pub," Jimmy'd said, willing enough. 

"No, you wouldn't want that," Thomas had said, drawing back, not as drunk as Jimmy by half.  
"Wh'ever not?"  
"It's not for you," Thomas said, quietly, looking down into his drink.  
"What?"  
"They don't allow ladies, or at least not the sort who would fancy you. It's a hedonist club."

 

It was almost a challenge, though he'd said it quietly enough.  
Jimmy'd accepted Thomas as a friend, hadn't he?  
He'd come drinking with him here. Why couldn't he go drinking with him there?  
"D'you think it's still there?"  
Thomas looked at him, laughing slightly. "No, probably not. Though there are plenty of others."

 

And finally, almost as though they were two children outdoing each other with challenges,  
they were off.  
Drinking their way through the pubs of the city. Including some where carmine pink glittery kimonos were found.  
The pounding in his head was louder.  
And Jimmy realized the pounding was being joined by a knocking at the door.

"Open up, you idjit," came a soft voice.  
Thomas.  
Jimmy gathered himself and forced his feet under him, careful not to let the kimono slip off of one shoulder as he walked.  
The knob turned, but the door didn't open.  
Jimmy stared at it, thinking hard. 

 

"Unlock it," came a hiss.  
"oh"  
Jimmy turned the latch (the wrong way at first, but he soon had the right of it),  
letting the other man in.

Bleery grey eyes met bleery blue ones.  
"Morning, Buttercup," Thomas said, raising an eyebrow. "I've brought coffee...and your pants."  
"How?"  
"Daisy."  
Jimmy's legs almost gave and Thomas grabbed his arm and guided him to the bed to sit. 

"The coffee's from her, not the pants," Barrow smirked.  
"When I went to fetch a cup for both of us, she was already up stirring, so she knows we stayed up late--though she never asked exactly where we were.  
  
"And the pants were just good luck," Thomas gave him a long, amused look.  
"You must've been carrying them-- They were on Carson's chair, and I scooped them up before anyone saw."

 

Sitting in Jimmy's only chair, Barrow drank his coffee.  
Neither man spoke again until they'd drained every last drop.  
"Buttercup?" asked Jimmy, a vague memory stirring again. 

"You told the men at the last club our friend Charlie liked Italian operas, but you were partial to Gilbert & Sullivan, before you started your serenade."

The coffee kicking in, Thomas smiled slightly.  
"You've a nice voice, Jimmy. Though I'd not thought of you as the Buttercup type....more a Ralph. The costume helped some, though."  
And with a nod, the footman took both of the cups back and left Jimmy Kent to try and dress himself. 

 

Was this worse than a tattoo?  
No. Just a drunken escapade.  
And yet, somehow, in the midst of it all, he now remembered telling Thomas how tattoos were of  
Hula girls, anchors, or the names of Sweethearts.

But that it'd hurt too much to get the entire name--Thomas--  
so he'd ended up with just a "T,"  
though  
(he'd told him...TOLD HIM)  
"Thomas" was marked indelibly  
on his heart.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jul/03/gayrights.world


End file.
